But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair… always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2Cor 4:7-12, ESV2011)

How can two people walk together in close fellowship as Christians and not fall into the many pitfalls and snares of the devil that are designed to destroy true Spirit unity? The answer is simple, two words: The Cross. Why do so many…

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17 thoughts on “The Answer of Death – the Wisdom of the Crucified Life in Christ”

Thank you for the reblog and the wonderful fellowship, Susanne. It was a blessing to see how God taught us this lesson on the how and the why of the cross of Christ in our lives. I am so glad that His ways are not our ways and His thought are higher than ours, ever calling us upward into His eternity.

Isaiah 55:8-9 My favorite verse. Thank you both for keeping me in fellowship with you. Through you and your words written I glean greater understanding of the nature of my being. The stronger desire to Follow Him although not always pleasant but I knew this from years ago before my Humpty Dumpty great fall. And through you I understand the reasons for this great chastisement. Although I am over most of it and have risen victoriously, I still see more and more within me. As you, Michael would say “Stick the fork in her to see if she’s done”. No, not quite.

Susanne, you mentioned not tolerating sin any more as people think it is alright and no I don’t think it’s alright. I think that is why I had this dream a couple months back. I was covering up when I really wanted to be honest. That is covering up everyone else’s sins when what really needed to be done was to be exposed. That is why I had to leave this one living situation because the spirit within me was screaming LEAVE! It is everywhere I go.

Another thing that is mentioned is How can two walk together?? I am only one. This is going to be very hard for me. And lonely too at times. I do pray about it of course. I told Father that I would give myself at least 7 years or however long He wants me to stay single to be purified of all the ways that was ungodly for me that led to the Humpty Dumpty fall. Dungeon experience, Looking at myself with depravity and disgust! I know for a fact that Father, our Father used you two to bring about healing and a desire to be more obedient.

With tears and gratitude Michael and Susanne, I am free of psych meds. It has been at least a few months now being set free.

I still need discipline. And as long as we have this way of communicating, I will keep you updated as I relate to your articles.

Thank you for your honest sharing, Stacey. I know your way has not been an easy one at all. 😦

May God keep you and encourage you on your hopefully not too lonely walk, dear sister!

I need to admit that our walk can be very lonely, even for a long time. It was that way for me and even more/longer for Michael as you might know. We could have decided to walk with anyone and we were both looking for someone to share our spiritual walk. But guess what? We found no one… Of course, we found Christians, but no spiritual believers. That meant disappointment after disappointment after… you get the picture. Stacey, we can try to fellowship with any Christian, but if God does not build His (spiritual) house, we who try to build it labor in vain (Ps 127:1).

Well, Susanne. God had to wean me off of my dependence upon other humans by isolating me from any meaningful relationships for 14 years. The real killer of my soul was that He refused to let me feel His presence in any form for all those years as well. As a result, almost everything that was of Egypt in me died in the wilderness. Thank God the day came when I heard Him speak to me again and He said, You have not been this way before. These were His very words to the Children of Israel as they were about to cross over the Jordan and enter into the Promised Land.

Susanne, how often Has God shown us a new thing since our wilderness has ended and as He shares His mind with us? Paul spoke of it well saying,

“But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” (1Cor 2:9-13, KJ2000)

You are and have been a blessing to my spirit, dear sister. It has been wonderful to be on this walk with you. ❤

That was an incredibly long period during which you were not allowed to feel God’s presence, dear Michael. It was even worse because you KNEW how it felt to rejoice in Jesus’ loving presence. Sometimes I think that those who never experienced such honeymoon periods with God might not know what they miss. However, God put a void into our hearts and a longing for Him which no human being can deny. This void can only be filled by God. But oh, how long it needs until it is emptied of our soulish stuff and filled with His Spirit instead!

Yes, I love that Scripture, too. It says a lot without disclosing any of these mysteries God wants to share with His people.

You are a treasure, my brother. Our God-given fellowship has been a blessing from the very beginning. It is a joy to be on this divine walk together with you. ❤

Fourteen years would have been excruciating for me! I may not be exactly where you two are at on this journey but I can say I do relate very well. Considering I am deaf already in the physical but being deaf in the spiritual is very deafening! Painful. Did you experience terror as well? And a deep, deep pain that would not produce tears but soul-wrenching pain? I don’t know which of the two was worse. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I couldn’t even speak during that time. I couldn’t work. I was like a walking zombie! I begged God to take my life. Thank God He didn’t answer that prayer. But I can testify that it was pure torment that I don’t ever want to experience again. I am just now in the last year or so coming out. It takes time to recover such a horrible experience. I don’t think I would have lasted 14 years. God bless you, Michael. And Susanne you are right. Very very few can even comprehend this loathsome experience. To be in the presence and then without walking, and fumbling and can’t even speak. People would talk about God in AA that I tried to make myself go back to but it just wasn’t working for me anymore. I could not talk about God and it would just prick my ears when people talked about Him so grandly. Can’t talk to people about these things. You two were the only ones I found anyways.

Since you posted this comment, I was not sure about how to reply to you. There was something in your response that sprang out on me.. .it was your question about having experienced terror as well. I was not sure whether being honest here might have frightened you, perhaps. Actually, I cannot count these many ways Satan attacked me, again and again, since 1996 (I think not so much before). At first “only” nightmares, later visions and seeing the physical presence of evil spirits in many places too (bedroom, bathroom, corridor). During the last years since 2012 it got even worse. Sometimes Satan’s horrific attacks seemed to kill me spiritually. During the dark night of the Spirit (the second one), it was pure horror. At first I had thought or hoped that John of the Cross in his book had overstated it a bit… yet it was true. It is also true that God saves us out of these situations, but it was not an easy thing, to be honest with you.

You are much braver than I Susanne. I had asked God many, many years ago to please not let me SEE evil in the spiritual sense. At least once that I remember I even became blind but not for long. That was in the 80’s. I have been paralyzed a few times in bed and the only way for me to be set free was to think on the name Jesus until I could actually verbally yell out His name. I have had my fair share of attacks, but maybe not as bad as you have had it. Too scary. But what I experienced between 2009- until about 2012 or 13 was altogether different. It was like a black hole. I did however but not for complete surety see a dark shadow out of the side of my eyes and I begged God to please not let me see those things. And to be honest I honestly believe my last husband sucked the last bit of light out of me for a long period. I don’t really want to talk about him though. I know I saw his eyes turn pitch black one night and yet I wanted to pretend that it wasn’t real. He was like a mocker of me big time. Anyways, it is good enough to me to have found someone as yourself to have overcome most of these pure evil that some of us dare not want to encounter. You are a brave spirit. But not to undermine my own because like I said too I have had my share.

To be honest, once again, dear Stacey, I have never been brave or courageous at all. I was always the shy and anxious little girl that was easily panicking. The fact that God led me on such a cruel path only began to make sense to me as I read in Teresa of Ávila’s diary (where she talked about herself) that only the weakest ones of Christ’s sheep need a lot of revelations from Him. The strong ones instead can more easily walk by faith without seeing a lot of ‘heaven’, so to speak. It has been the same for me until God took all this ‘seeing’ away and led me into the dark night of the spirit where I could not sense anything which was good or pleasant any longer. It has been like a long and dark death where hell broke loose more than once. I felt no love for God or Christ anymore, either, and if I heard someone rejoice about God, it got all worse for me. If someone even dared to give me some ‘advice’ about what I did wrong in their sight (without them having been on the same path ever), the only thing I could do was ESCAPE. But to whom? If God had not saved me out of that pit, I would not know how I could have survived it.

It seems to me that you also got a real share of horrible experiences, dear sister, which, as John of the Cross in his book ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’ said, might be a hint from God that He is going to purify your soul through satanic attacks in a similar dark night of the spirit too. However, do not worry, it is not the same for everyone as you can also see when you compare Michael’s and my case. God leads us on different paths, yet on the same way which is Jesus Christ.

Stacey,
Thank you for your comment. On the negative side during that 14 years, I was in a prolonged depression and often had panic attacks and anxiety to deal with and a feeling of total helplessness. The most heartbreaking part of it all was losing any sense of God or Jesus in my life. Although I felt isolated and alone (even in a crowd of Christians), I can look back now and see that God had me hidden in the shadow of His wings. He was doing some deep surgery in me and killing and removing all that I once took pride in.

Did you know that God cloaks Himself in darkness? Abraham found that out and so did many other Bible figures. Do a word search on the word “darkness” in the Bible and you will be surprised. BTW, if you have not read my testimony from 1970 to 2000 about this period in my life and what it taught me, you can read it here:http://www.awildernessvoice.com/ThirtyYears.html

Thank you Michael for your testimony. I must admit that I was not an avid church going woman. Everything I learned was pretty much on my own. As you know growing up I was Catholic. I was also attacked as a child too. There is just so much to tell about my life. But for now the pressure is on in my personal life. I have to figure out where I am moving to next on my income. Whether I want to get a car or something else that is very costly. I only have about two weeks to decide which is more important. The kids will be out of school soon and my daughter is going away so therefore I have to go.

Sorry, I am in a tough spot once again. I will talk soon again as time allows where I don’t have fire breathing down my neck. LOL

This is your comment that terrified me during my ordeal. Only I did not know anything about a Dark Night of the Soul or Spirit.

I felt no love for God or Christ anymore, either, and if I heard someone rejoice about God, it got all worse for me. If someone even dared to give me some ‘advice’ about what I did wrong in their sight (without them having been on the same path ever), the only thing I could do was ESCAPE. But to whom? If God had not saved me out of that pit, I would not know how I could have survived it.

I felt so utterly abandoned. I will write more on this later. I want to read Michael’s testimony.

What I want to know is why? Why did we have to go through all this? And still be alive? I swear if it wasn’t for the thought of my granddaughter or the fear of hell I would have done away with myself. Thank God I got kicked out of my home to get into survival mode. Now I am alive but still in survival mode.

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“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
(John 3:16-17 ESV)

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